LAS LUCHAS POR LA INDEPENDENCIA EN LA SIERRA NORTE DEL ACTUAL ECUADOR

Abstract

The process of independence of the current Ecuador
cannot be seen or understood in the light of a series of political
events in which there was only a desire for liberation from the
Peninsula; nor as a group of military combats or skirmishes occurred
chronologically, where the triumph of one or the other side was
defined. Such issue must be perceived under the understanding of
the socio-economic interests of the ‘power groups’ that intervened
in such struggles. In this framework, one of those interests was the
control of the land and of the economic systems linked to production
and trade that, in a subsequent manner, were decisive for such
groups to eventually decide, at the time, to become involved in a
company that would take some years and whose object was the
emancipation of the Spanish crown, with the consequent political,
economic and administrative autonomy. The present study, in its first
part, investigates which were those struggles for independence in
the northern Sierra of the old Quito region; for a second part, which
will appear in the next issue of this bulletin, connect them with the
economic consequences reached after the independence struggle, in
the same area.